Angela Merkel's speech on the future of Europe this week produced a few ideas. But even though observers had hoped to hear a new game plan for Europe's mounting challenges, expectations fell short. At least altercations between Parliament and Commission officials were not in short supply.

The numbers may have fallen dramatically – by October the number of migrants reaching Europe had dropped to around 80,000 so far this year, compared to 300,000 in 2016 - but European leaders are still preoccupied with migration control.

“We forget that the water cycle and the life cycle are one.” Those words by the late Jacques Cousteau become truer by the day in our ever more polluted world. But the EU could be on the brink of cleaning up the one thing none of us can live without.

A sculpture representing shiny happy people holding hands appeared on Schuman roundabout this week while EU leaders held their most useless EU summit in years, in what was a botched attempt to fix issues such as Brexit and migration.

During the Salzburg EU summit, English-speaking media were quick to draw the link between the Austrian city and the setting of the Sound of Music. For French-speaking journalists, the informal meeting brought another song to mind: "Rock around the bunker" by iconic Frenchman Serge Gainsbourg.

A victorious post-bailout Alexis Tsipras, a defiant Viktor Orbán backed by far-right colleagues and an exhausted Jean-Claude Juncker. This week’s EP plenary showed, even more than Juncker’s tired annual address, what the actual state of the Union is and the contradictions Europe is facing.

“Where is the French right going?” LR deputy Maël de Calan asks in the book "The populist temptation", released on 30 August. Inside French right-wing party Les Republicains, the stance of its leader raises questions and doubts.

Romania’s governing coalition is pressing on with plans to bring the judiciary under control, despite the massive protests just a few weeks ago. And leaders of the ruling parties got an unexpected helper from Washington.

NATO held its first summit in its grandiose new buildings this week. This should have suggested a new beginning for the transatlantic alliance. But the impression from the discussions was quite the reverse.

It was another exciting week in Strasbourg. Not only did MEPs from across the political spectrum race to show righteous anger at Donald Trump, the president of new protectionism, but they saw the fall (and rise) of two EU governments in the space of a few days.

One year ahead of the European elections, a recent Eurobarometer opinion poll seems to have emboldened mainstream politicians. European Parliament boss Antonio Tajani said that these results indicate a positive trend of EU support, despite Brexit, “or perhaps precisely because of this”.

Almost certainly to the displeasure of mainstream Brussels, leaders of Europe's far-right parties came together on the French Riviera this week, saying they wanted to devise a battle plan for next year's European election.

Anxious of losing its absolute majority in the next Bavarian election, the CSU is venturing into the territory of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD). Unfortunately, rejecting Emmanuel Macron’s EU reform plans is part of that strategy, and it's pushed Angela Merkel to take a vow of silence on the EU's future once again.

A strange and boring lunch, hosted by Antonio Tajani, took place on the 7th floor of the European Parliament on Tuesday (17 April), when Emmanuel Macron came to Strasbourg to charm MEPs with his visions of Europe.